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Slow startup (all Affinity apps)


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Unfortunately there's been no further development update regarding this, however;

20 hours ago, DEMinSoCAL said:

If they cared, they'd redesign their software to work like literally every other app that doesn't stall on start

This is not true, and would not resolve this issue. Many other apps are being reported for slow loading issues, since 2020, for example:

https://support.simulationcurriculum.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/1500000055901-Why-Does-SkySafari-6-Pro-Takes-A-Long-Time-To-Open-On-MacOS-And-Can-It-Be-Faster-Answer-The-Time-To-Launch-Originates-With-MacOS-GateKeeper-Scanning-The-App-

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253960836

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/big-sur-apps-slow-to-launch.2279325/

https://www.applevis.com/forum/macos-mac-apps/apps-launching-very-slowly-m1-macbook-air

As I understand it, this appears to have begun after Apple changed how codesiging and Gatekeeper works, meaning the apps have to be fully checked on each 'new run' (ie following a system restart), as this data is no longer held locally.

More information regarding this can be found below:

https://eclecticlight.co/2020/11/25/macos-has-checked-app-signatures-online-for-over-2-years/

https://eclecticlight.co/2018/12/22/how-thoroughly-does-gatekeeper-check-existing-apps/

We're still working with Apple to try and reduce the time these checks take, however we cannot circumvent macOS security as a third party app.

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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13 minutes ago, Dan C said:

we cannot circumvent macOS security

Even if you could, I wouldn’t like to see you do something so reckless!

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27 minutes ago, Dan C said:

We're still working with Apple to try and reduce the time these checks take, however we cannot circumvent macOS security as a third party app.

Not trying to cause trouble, but at the top of page four of this very thread it's essentially been confirmed the security check is due to the embedded browser used in Affinity for the welcome/user screen.

Maybe those other apps justifiably need a full browser in them, maybe not. For Affinity it's certainly not central to the functionality.

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5 minutes ago, BofG said:

at the top of page four of this very thread it's essentially been confirmed the security check is due to the embedded browser used in Affinity for the welcome/user screen

This was, at the time, what we believed to be a potential cause of this slow loading - however from the further information we've since gathered / been provided by Apple, we don't believe this to be the only reason, as the aforementioned Gatekeeper changes for macOS app signatures occurs with, or without an embedded browser/ 'JIT' flag.

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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4 hours ago, Dan C said:

Unfortunately there's been no further development update regarding this, however;

This is not true, and would not resolve this issue. Many other apps are being reported for slow loading issues, since 2020, for example:

https://support.simulationcurriculum.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/1500000055901-Why-Does-SkySafari-6-Pro-Takes-A-Long-Time-To-Open-On-MacOS-And-Can-It-Be-Faster-Answer-The-Time-To-Launch-Originates-With-MacOS-GateKeeper-Scanning-The-App-

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253960836

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/big-sur-apps-slow-to-launch.2279325/

https://www.applevis.com/forum/macos-mac-apps/apps-launching-very-slowly-m1-macbook-air

As I understand it, this appears to have begun after Apple changed how codesiging and Gatekeeper works, meaning the apps have to be fully checked on each 'new run' (ie following a system restart), as this data is no longer held locally.

More information regarding this can be found below:

https://eclecticlight.co/2020/11/25/macos-has-checked-app-signatures-online-for-over-2-years/

https://eclecticlight.co/2018/12/22/how-thoroughly-does-gatekeeper-check-existing-apps/

We're still working with Apple to try and reduce the time these checks take, however we cannot circumvent macOS security as a third party app.

So the lingerling "logical" questions are why this happens MOSTLY with Affinity apps and why it only happens with the App Store versions?  Does Pixelmator Pro, for example,  not use codesigning and somehow bypasses Gatekeeper as the reason their app launches immediately?  

Why do your Web versions, for the most part, not delay on start?

Secondly, there is no way to provide Affinity Web Store replacements for people that can prove they bought the Apple App Store versions since this seems it will never be fixed? 

Also, YES...there are reports of other apps (mostly complaints of MS Office) that exhibit similar behavior, but if you read the posts, most say they have no issues with other apps (except MS Office, in the case of the particular thread).

It just seems if Apple changed something, then why isn't EVERY app exhibiting the delay?

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25 minutes ago, DEMinSoCAL said:

why it only happens with the App Store versions?

This isn't the case, it can happen with both the Affinity Store and the App Store version of the apps - the App Store versions are slightly slower to launch than the Affinity Store versions as Apple has to initialise these apps within a 'Sandboxed' environment, but the aforementioned macOS security changes affect both versions.

25 minutes ago, DEMinSoCAL said:

Secondly, there is no way to provide Affinity Web Store replacements for people that can prove they bought the Apple App Store versions

This is not possible, based on Apples Developer agreement. I have covered this in further details in regards to Affinity iOS here, but the same applies to macOS apps from the App Store -

25 minutes ago, DEMinSoCAL said:

Does Pixelmator Pro, for example,  not use codesigning and somehow bypasses Gatekeeper as the reason their app launches immediately?  

25 minutes ago, DEMinSoCAL said:

why isn't EVERY app exhibiting the delay?

I'm unable to answer this, I don't know enough about how other apps may be coded, perhaps Apple Support will be able to assist further with this - as I'm only provided information regarding the Affinity apps for technical support.

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...
32 minutes ago, Vicente Negrin said:
search for “vicen negrin solucion a la velocidad de arranque en Affinity Photo en Mac”.

Hi and welcome.

Not all users here are native Spanish speakers and will not be able to understand your solution on Youtube.

It would be nice if you could post your solution here in text form; you can also do this in Spanish.

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X | INTEL Arc A770 LE 16 GB  | 32 GB DDR4 3200MHz | Windows 11 Pro 23H2 (22631.3296)
AMD A10-9600P | dGPU R7 M340 (2 GB)  | 8 GB DDR4 2133 MHz | Windows 10 Home 22H2 (1945.3803) 

Affinity Suite V 2.4 & Beta 2.(latest)
Better translations with: https://www.deepl.com/translator  
Interested in a robust (selfhosted) PDF Solution? Have a look at Stirling PDF

Life is too short to have meaningless discussions!

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as far as I understand he downloads a trial of Affinity Photo, replaces the app store version (and backups that app store version before), starts the trial (accepts the license agreement), and finally replaces the trial with the backed up version of the app store.

not sure if this will *really* help to the case, to be honest.

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23 minutes ago, M1chael said:

as far as I understand he downloads a trial of Affinity Photo, replaces the app store version (and backups that app store version before), starts the trial (accepts the license agreement), and finally replaces the trial with the backed up version of the app store.

not sure if this will *really* help to the case, to be honest.

Interesting, but none of the "fixes" I have found to work long term.  They may work for a few weeks, but then...BAM!  back to the 17-23 seconds of bouncing icon on the dock.

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Hace 2 horas, M1chael dijo:

por lo que entiendo, descarga una versión de prueba de Affinity Photo, reemplaza la versión de la tienda de aplicaciones (y hace copias de seguridad de esa versión de la tienda de aplicaciones antes), comienza la prueba (acepta el acuerdo de licencia) y finalmente reemplaza la versión de prueba conla versión de copia de seguridad de la tienda de aplicaciones.

no estoy seguro de si esto *realmente* ayudará al caso, para ser honesto.

Efectivamente, es como lo has traducido, 1 hacer copia de seguridad del affinity photo de appstore.

2 Instalar la version trial de la web y ejectutar la app.

3 cerrar la app y reescribir la version trial por la version de la appstore y listo !! A mi me funciona perfectamente, y lo han probado varios amigos y a todos les funciona perfecto. Un saludo !!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I’ve migrated back to Inkscape (if you can believe it), and Illustrator (I get it free because I submit images to Adobe Stock), but now with the Pantone craziness…and I used to be a big Corel nerd but they’re bat sh!t crazy costs and typical unstableness is a big NOPE… I don’t know where to go from here. 

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2 hours ago, DEMinSoCAL said:

Anyone try Affinity V2 apps to see how fast they start?  Web or App Store versions?

I just did, restarted my laptop and opened the new apps. On a MBP 16" (M1 Max) both apps took about 3 seconds to load completely. The splash screen is displayed in less than 1 second.

I didn't time the startup time of the old apps, but it was much longer.

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I know this is beating a dead horse but why has this not been resolved after years of being reported? Has a serif employee even responded to the issue? I got version 1 of publisher, and it wasn't doing it but since I upgraded to V2 it's doing it all the time now (I'm on pc desktop).  I understand they have a lot on their plate but deal with problems that are years old before going on to dealing with new ones. 

And I feel like there are lots of people that like this software...so LISTEN to YOUR BASE when they have been complaining about the same issues for years. 

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Just bumping this again as I'm noticing 30+ second initial start times again with all of the apps.

I'm running a clean install (2 days ago) of Ventura 13.0 on a 14" 2021 MBP M1 Pro 32GB, 2TB.

Edit: Doing the "copy/trash/paste hokey-pokey" of the Affinity apps, creating copies from the /Applications folder and temporarily moving them to the ~/Desktop (or ~/Downloads) folder, then dragging the original versions from /Applications to the trash, and then dragging the copies from ~/Desktop (~/Downloads) back to the applications folder, restarting and then launching the apps does seem to resolve the issue. The apps all now launch in roughly 2-3 seconds as expected.

I'm not sure if this fix is permanent, but so far it does seem to have done the trick.

Edited by Guest
Document potential fix.
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